Ontwerp voor de aardewerkdecoratie op een schaal met een landschap Possibly 1920 - 1928

Theo Colenbrander made this landscape design for a ceramic plate, but you could be forgiven for thinking it was a watercolour. The colours are gentle and the marks so light, it's like he barely touched the page. But you can tell he's feeling the surface of the plate he imagines this design to be for, as he is making it. I love the way he's scratched and scribbled, almost blindly in the upper left corner, to find the form of the trees. Then, he's used these loose lines as a guide to map out the design as a whole. You could compare it to Monet, who similarly looked for impressions, or perhaps Cy Twombly, who’s known for his calligraphic, loose and gestural marks. Colenbrander, like those painters, is less concerned with capturing a literal scene and more interested in the act of making an image. Like a conversation, or a really good question, it opens up different ways of seeing.